We had a really good, eventful tennis weekend at home. Thursday night, the Cats had a nice dinner where we all shared salad and then stocked up on energy from delicious pizza. Afterwards, we all went to bed and had a good night of rest so we were ready to take on the Bruins of UCLA.

Friday morning, I had an early hit with our assistant coach, Nick. A bit later the girls arrived and we were all in the winning spirit to play UCLA.

At 1:30, we started our Bear Down cheer and we were ready to go into our doubles. Nos. 1 and 2 doubles were in the match with UCLA and fought hard, but both lost 8-4. Kiki and I lost--we didn’t really execute the basics and it was tough to get our rhythm back. No worries thought, because we had the singles next.

UCLA pulled out their No. 1 player Anderson, so Lacey got to play McPhilips instead. Lace noticed a slower start, but immediately found her rhythm back and fought real hard until the last point.

I played Pamela Montez. I knew her from before and looked forward to playing her. I won 6-1, 6-0.

Laura fought and played hard on court three, but Harrison took the match, 6-2, 7-6.

Kiki split sets, but then showed her great talent and won 6-3 in the third. She put the second point on the board for the wildcats.

Shayne played well on court five, but lost, 6-3, 6-4.

Finally, we had our volley star Susan Mc Rann who had a real close match and played solid against Skylar Morton. Susan closely lost 10-8 in the super tie break.

We felt good about our match against UCLA and we were all ready to take our great team spirit and momentum into our next day’s match against USC.

On Saturday, we started our doubles at noon. No. 1 lost 8-1. Kiki and I were ahead, 5-2, but they fought their way back into the match. Our No. 3 team did well, showing good hands, but USC took the win and we decided to stop the doubles, so Kiki and I retired on 6-5. USC took the doubles point.

Again, no big deal for us, because we had great opportunities to do well in every single spot with our singles line up. We fought really hard in the singles, we all had long rallies and played well.

Laura lost 6-2, 6-0, but her score didn’t say much because they had such long and good rallies. I also had long rallies and got into a third set. Unfortunately, for the first time this season I had to retire due to cramping. A little after my match freshman, Shayne Austin was the only one to put a point on the board for your Wildcats! She beat Ellie Yates with 6-4 score in the third set. USC won 6-1.

This weekend showed us a lot. We learned that with this team, we have great match ups and we can definitely compete with no matter what team. We all showed how good we are and that we can compete with anyone.

Great lessons have to be learned from this weekend and need to bring it on next weekend against more top-ranked schools. We play Stanford and Cal next Friday and Saturday! If you are free, come and support your women’s tennis team.

Special shout out to THE GREAT CROWD we had this weekend. Everyone enjoyed playing for those great wildcat fans, and we definitely enjoyed the great energy in the tennis stadium! It means a lot to have you all there.

Also, a special thanks to our great reporter with the live updates on twitter. Thanks Natasha Marks. Many people, even internationally love your twitter updates!